


Wide-Arms Crush, not Hug

by Elionia



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Bears suck, Body Worship, Cave bears suck more, F/F, F/M, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hate Sex, Lynly is adorable, Romance, Sexual Assault, Skyrim - Freeform, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-06-28 02:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15698163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elionia/pseuds/Elionia
Summary: Temba Wide-Arm hates her life. She hates her town, she hates her mill, she hates her apprentice, she hates herself, but most of all she hates bears. She's had enough, and leaves Ivarstead to start anew, with friends lost and gained along the way.Initially a one shot for a Skyrim Kink challenge, decided to expand upon it after meeting Temba in game and falling in love with her character!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Initially a one shot for a Skyrim Kink challenge, decided to expand upon it after meeting Temba in game and falling in love with her character!

The Vilemyr Inn was mostly empty on the late Sundas night. There were no travelers passing through on this day, no pilgrims on their way up the 7,000 Steps. Klimmek sat alone at a far off table, drowning his lovesickness in the bottom of a mug of Black-Briar Mead whilst Wilhelm and Lynly reviewed the latest stock brought in from Riften and Sarethi Farm. A faint, yet persistent banging noise came from one of the occupied rooms, but the others feigned deafness.

The innkeep squinted as he peered over the new labels from the Black-Briar shipment, and grunted in vague bafflement at how much style a single letter could garner. He was about to ask Lynly for a second opinion on whether a 'B' was indeed a 'B', but a shout from the not-too-quiet room stirred attention that could no longer be ignored,

“By the Nine! Tongue, you milk-drinker. _Use your tongue_ \- oh!”

Klimmek's forehead slammed against the tabletop, and he sounded a low groan. Meanwhile, Wilhelm sighed and left Lynly to figure out the calligraphy on her own, making his way to the door of the room. He tried his hardest to keep an otherwise active imagination dormant,

“Keep it down in there!” he warned, a fist knocking once against the wood, “or... use a pillow... or something!” He cringed when he heard the moving and grunting inside come to an abrupt stop, then continue, albeit slower and muted, a moment or so later. Wilhelm gave up and returned to Lynly, who was struggling with the label.

Inside of the room, Temba Wide-Arm continued to rock against the face of her apprentice, who lay on his back upon the fur covers of the bed. His mistress's eyes were closed, her hands gripping at the ends of her skirt, which she kept hiked up as she crouched over the Bosmer's head. Back and forth did she move her hips, womanhood and more subjecting poor Gwilin to service unspoken of when the pair had first met nearly half a decade ago.

Temba's breathing had grown shallow, her brow lined with beads of sweat - in her mind she pictured naught; the heat and ardor turned her senseless. When she came at last, she did so without care for the soul beneath her, and plopped down hard upon a pointy nose and chin. She rolled off and gave Gwilin a hard punch in the shoulder,

“M-mind yourself,” her voice was weak from exhaustion, and she swallowed before aiming another blow for the Bosmer's chest, “you should have pushed me off.”

Gwilin winced as he sat up, and gave his mistress an apologetic look,

“I'm sorry, Miss Temba. But I did last time, and you boxed my ears for it, remember?”

Temba scowled and cracked her knuckles, balling her hands together before she vented more harm on her apprentice. Why couldn't he ever simply fight back? Grow a spine for once. There was always something to apologize for, some excuse for her abuse. It roiled Temba's insides more than century old Eidar cheese, and aggravated her constant irritable mood to boot.

She flared her nostrils and looked away in disgust,

“Clean your face. You look a mess.”

“Yes, Miss Temba.”

There was an oddly comfortable silence afterwards, with only the heavy breaths of master and apprentice interposed, filling the hot room with more warm air.

Hearthfire could not come soon enough for Temba, who hated the heat that the middle months brought to Ivarstead. She had always preferred freezing to boiling alive; the adversity that came with the chill when working the sawmill and chopping wood made the balmy, oppressive reign of the summer torture in comparison. And it wasn't just because of her Nord blood, as Gwilin liked to claim. She would have hated warmth even were she the tallest, fairest, pompous-arsed High-Elf in all of Tamriel.

“Do you want me to get you something to drink, Miss Temba? Mead, perhaps? Wilhelm said that he-”

Gwilin didn't get the chance to finish as Temba's hand wrapped around his throat. She was nearly a whole head taller than the Bosmer, and the years of hard labor had given her the strength to match,

“Don't you _ever_. Do you understand?”

What she meant needed no elaboration. Gwilin understood; it was something he had come to accept - these impersonal sessions at the late hours when the Vilemyr would have few, if any, patrons to suspect or overhear.

At least, Temba hoped the youth (he was far older than her, as was par for elves, but she regarded him as a boy), had come to accept this arrangement. It could be just as likely that the cheery Bosmer had taken this the wrong way and found attachment; a fondness for her use of him.

The thought made Temba sick, and she immediately let him go. Gwilin fell and grasped at the collar of his tunic. Their eyes met for a second, and then he stood and cleared his throat,

“Good night, Miss Temba.”

He turned to leave, but Temba whistled to draw him back around. He gave her a confused look that soon dissipated once she tapped her right cheek. Gwilin felt the wet streak he missed and quickly wiped it off before bowing and departing.

Temba stood alone in the room, knees suddenly weak and head feeling as though it carried an iron weight. Her thoughts were clouded with a mental fog. This post-orgasmic haze was always frustrating, and its origins had been a constant source of mystery for the Nord woman. She chalked the minute delirium up to her inability to find happiness in anything, but she knew that this wasn't wholly true.

Perhaps she needed a good fuck, but she had very little experience in that arena, and Gwilin certainly wasn't going to give it to her.

Not unless she forced him.

She sat down on the bed and blew a brown lock of hair from her eyes as she gave the idea more idle thought; she decided that it was pointless to even imagine. She was too tired, and so stretched those long and powerful arms that had earned her the name she both loved and loathed to be called, depending on the person who deigned to use it.

 _'Wide-Arm'_.

A moniker coined back when she wore the purple cloak of the Rift; she had been assigned to Ivarstead as a loan for a single day when the vagrant Narfi fell upon her, a bear hot on his heels. She hadn't time to draw her axe, and wrestled with the beast until help arrived, arms and the strength of Kynareth keeping the long claws from rending her to pieces.

She hailed from Shor's Stone, but the gratitude from the villagers of Ivarstead had given her inclination to stay - that along with dreams of glory and adventuring, and the barrel-loads of mead and ale that Wilhelm gave her. Very few could claim to have beaten a bear in hand-to-hand; by the divines, she could have been a hero, that fearsome beast being the prelude of her glorious and fabled tale.

Alas, it had been the only event in her life worthy of note. She built a sawmill with her saved wages, kept a room at the inn, and toiled away in obscurity for the next two decades.

Reflecting on the years long gone, nay - wasted, filled Temba with discontent, and she felt angry tears welling up in her eyes. Her fingers clutched at her hair and she grew tight lipped so that her scream would only amount to a strangled, pitiful peep.

After what seemed an excessive amount of time spent wallowing in despair, she wiped her eyes and dug teeth into her cheek. She tasted the iron of blood and bit down harder. Finding resolve within physical pain had always helped Temba cope with the burdens of her emotions.

She would do something tomorrow. She would leave this place; give the sawmill to Gwilin and do what she should have done as a young woman - seek fortune and fame; let Wide-Arm be known throughout the legends, and not just a mocking reminder of the past. Her eyes found the rusty iron axe she kept beneath the bed. Its hilt, wrapped in leather, peeked out from the shadows. She reached down to pick it up and gave it a swing or two.

Temba nodded to herself as the motions grew familiar, muscle memory from her time as a guard returning to limbs that had grown accustomed to lifting logs and chopping wood.

She was resolute. She would leave. She meant it this time.

She fell asleep on a wave of darkness.

* * *

“Another batch of logs completely ruined. I swear, these bears have it out for me.”

“I hardly think the bears are clever enough to hold a grudge against you, Miss Temba.”

“When I want your opinion, Gwilin, I’ll ask for it. Otherwise, shut your mouth.”

Temba stood arms akimbo as she and her apprentice looked over the ravaged pile hauled in by the most recent contractor. The driver of the dray cart shrugged and said,

“These were the best ones the boys could find, Miss. Send us any farther north and we’ll have to request permission from Windhelm. Eastmarch has need of lumber too.”

“The Rift is sworn to the Sons of Skyrim,” Temba’s words were more bitter than she felt, “shields and bows are needed here just as much as up north.”

“That being said, we can’t just waltz into the Palace of Kings and ask Ulfric to put the war on hold for the business of lumber, can we?”

Temba shot the cart driver an ugly look and then pinched her brow. She sighed and turned away, leaving Gwilin to pay the man and get him out of the lumber yard. Her head pounded, and her knees wanted her to sit down. But she couldn't - there was work to be done, after all, even as the sun reigned high above in its sweltering glory. She rolled her shoulders and began a walk up the mill. A single log was left in the bay, which Temba easily lifted and set down.

As she watched the saw work through the wood, she folded her arms and fell into her own thoughts, as she was prone to; her mind engendered fantasies of the bear problem, and the subsequent culling she would enact were she able to leave Gwilin alone with the mill for a single day; of the proper dressing down she would deliver to Jarl Laila Law-Giver, whose noticeable lack of reply over the years to dozens upon dozens of letters requesting more guards and hunters gave rise to a cynical resentment towards positions of rule Temba had once respected.

“If I could do it all again…” she muttered out loud, surprising herself enough to shake from the reverie. Her eyes blinked, and her lips stayed parted, mouthing in silence the same words she had uttered without notice,

_‘If I could do it all again…’_

“Are you all right, Miss Temba?”

Her gaze snapped to Gwilin, who had finished with the cart driver and made his way up the ramp. She stared down at him as though he were a cave bear, menacing and mocking as its claws raked the trunk of a tree, and not the feeble elf who was frequently subject to her frustrations.

The Bosmer had noted this sudden and intense change in his master’s demeanor, and an instinctive wariness overcame him as he repeated,

“M-miss Temba?”

Without a word she advanced upon him, so he turned and fled. He ducked as a logging hook flew past his head, and found sanctuary within Klimmek’s house.

Temba stormed into the Vilemyr and went straight for her room, ignoring Wilhelm’s puzzled face and Lynly's concerned queries. She took off her apron, then hoisted her skirt up and folded it into her belt. After slipping into a pair of hose, she began looking for her axe, which she retrieved from beneath the bed and tucked into her belt as well. Then it was time to search for her bow and quiver. It had been a year since she last hunted, and she hadn’t meant to neglect her archery for as long as she did. Another consequence of the sloth and middling routine she had become enslaved to.

She pulled the ashen-wood bow out from behind the wardrobe and plucked at the rawhide string. It was frayed, and would need to be replaced. She would do it later. The quiver came next, with a score of iron arrows still in good enough condition to be used. She slung the bow over her shoulder and tied a makeshift band around her knee with a leather strip for the quiver.

When it seemed at last she was ready, she took a deep breath and gave the room she had called home for the past twenty years a final look. She would never come back; she swore to herself then and there.

Temba left the room and closed the door, where she met Wilhelm, whose concern had multiplied tenfold when he saw the state of his longest patron’s dress,

“Hold there, Temba. Where you going girl?”

“Away. Tell Gwilin that the mill is his. I have nothing left to teach him.”

“You’re leaving?”

Wilhelm couldn’t seem to believe it; indeed, Temba could hardly understand it herself. But there was no time; she felt the rush in her veins, the shortness of breath that came only when anticipation stirred, and it had been a long time since the Nord woman had known anything of anticipation,

“I am. It’s time.” Then, without any idea why, Temba leaned forward and kissed the innkeep. She felt no attraction to the man, but at that moment she would have kissed a mudcrab; it was just something that she _needed_ to do.

Wilhelm followed her to the door and held it open, stunned and giddy,

“Well… good luck, Wide-Arm.”

She gave him an awkward, intense smirk; she could never really manage smiling.

* * *

Halfway out on the road to Riften, Temba felt the eerie sensation of being watched, and began to note odd shapes here and there in the foliage. Paranoia had been something she would have scoffed at when she was younger, but now she was acutely aware of how vulnerable she was; a woman who had just left her village, with naught but an old war axe and hunting bow to protect her, out on her own in the wilderness of the Rift, where bears and wolves patrolled the roads more than the Jarl’s men.

Temba’s brief high after leaving the shackles of her old life faded, and was replaced by uncertainty as her steps slowed. She kept a hand close to her hip, fingers drumming against the axe hilt.

What if it had been a fool mistake, brought on by rash judgment, or lack thereof; leaving the safety and comfort of a settlement, and for what exactly? She hadn’t the faintest idea what she would do, where she would go. She was walking to Riften, but only because that was the only place she could think of. Divines knew she couldn’t go back to Shor’s Stone, if she could even recognize it after so many years.

The sky grew purple as darkness rose, and Temba’s suspicion of being watched became a certainty. She unslung her bow and nocked an arrow,

“Is someone there?”

There was a rustling from a nearby shrubbery, and Temba let her arrow loose. A sharp cry sounded as a slight figure emerged from the bushes and hopped around before falling flat on his face.

Temba rushed forward, another arrow already nocked and aimed for the fiend, whom she kicked over so that she could see him,

“ _Gwilin_?”

“Hi Miss Temba. Still have the eye of an eagle! To pin a Wood-Elf hiding in greenery! It’s…” the young Bosmer could only maintain an upbeat attitude for so long, and soon he was squeezing his eyes shut tightly from the pain.

Temba, far from feeling merciful, pressed the tip of her arrow to Gwilin’s chest,

“Why were you following me? The mill is yours now - didn’t Wilhelm tell you?”

“I… couldn’t… let you go… alone… Miss Temba…” Gwilin was seething in an effort to keep from swearing in between breaths, and his hands clutched at his left thigh where, Temba assumed, the arrow had struck, “the wilds are dangerous… bandits… soldiers… necromancers…”

“And bears and trolls and frostbite spiders who can wound me up into a cocoon twice my size, yes! So what makes you think you’d be of any use to me, little elf?” She pressed the arrowhead into Gwilin’s chest, just enough to pierce the flesh, “Go home, and don’t come looking for me, or next time I won’t aim so low.”

Temba leaned down and broke the arrow shaft embedded within Gwilin’s leg, but it had been a while since she had last handled retrieving arrows, and the iron tip broke apart within the wound.

“Shit.”

Realizing how serious the situation had grown in a matter of seconds, Temba searched her belt for a health potion, brewed quite some time ago by a novice alchemist who traveled through Ivarstead three years back - only it wasn’t in her belt. Had she left it back at the Vilemyr? She must have! That along with her pack. How had she forgotten her pack? Had she been in such a rush that urgency superseded common sense?

Temba quickly felt the stresses of her predicaments fall upon her one after the other, unrepentant in their solutions only now obvious in hindsight. Why hadn’t she waited before firing her arrow? Why hadn’t she prepared better for the journey? Why hadn’t she had a plan? Why couldn’t she just leave this annoying elf to bleed out on the cobbles of the old road - he was never of any great use to her anyway, was he?

Gwilin’s groans brought her out of her mind’s futile footrace, and she nervously began an attempt to bind the wound with a strip of linen that she tore from her skirt. Her hands were steady despite the constant fear of error. When she had finished, her hands were bloody and Gwilin had stopped groaning. Indeed, the Bosmer wasn’t making any noise, nor was he moving. Heart thudding, Temba feared the worst before she saw the faint rise and fall of Gwilin’s chest.

Sitting back in some relief, Temba ran her reddened fingers through her hair, which was already slick from sweat; some blood wouldn’t matter. Her eyes closed, and then she felt the hollow heat rising to her bosom,

“Why did you follow me, idiot? You’ll die of infection with those iron shards in your leg, and I’m of half a mind to let you.” Temba kicked the sleeping elf’s uninjured leg and angrily spat off to the side. Saddled with a fool again; tethered down with a burden as quickly as she had gained her freedom. It was a woeful twist of fate, and Temba cursed all the Aedra and Daedra save Kynareth.

Slowly she got to her feet and began to drag Gwilin off the road. It was fully dark now and she couldn’t risk being discovered. Who knew what could stumble upon them? There was no cave nearby, nor a large enough tree to take cover beneath, so Temba settled for a soft patch of dirt some ways off the road, with a few shrubs providing middling cover.

She set Gwilin down, checked his leg’s binding, and kept a sullen watch.


	2. Chapter 2

Temba awoke to the smell of cooked meat, and forgot all about the previous day, grunting in her half-awake state,

“That hare, Wilhelm? Mmmr… Set it down right there…”

“It is hare, Miss Temba! You’ve a sharp nose, do you know that?”

Temba’s eyes blinked open, and she immediately sat up. A sharp jolt arced through her back, and she hissed her agony before peering around and getting her bearings.

Gwilin was up and about, and had started a roaring fire under a nicely seared hare on a spit. He had also lain out two sleeping rolls, but Temba must have tossed and turned out of it, for she was sitting up on the forest floor. She saw two packs, one her own, neatly set out nearby. Her eyes found Gwilin again; the elf had taken a haunch of the hare, and chewed whilst happily humming a song.

Temba licked her dry lips and started to rise, but the bad sleep had left her sore, so she stayed seated while Gwilin rushed to attend to her,

“Oh - please don’t move Miss Temba! You don’t want to upset your back.” He set a hand on her shoulder, which Temba quickly shrugged off,

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, put off that she had allowed herself to be taken unawares by this new situation, “how are you walking?”

Gwilin laughed a genuine and honest laugh; it was the sort of laughter that made Temba’s blood boil with how pure and good natured it was,

“Why, magic of course! When I came to, I applied a simple healing spell to the wound, and…” he pulled up a legging, exposing a scrawny thigh with just a small mark hinting at any previous injury, “see? Good as new!”

Magic. Temba had guessed as much. She held the same opinion on the art as most of her kinsmen, and distrusted anything arcane, but she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret at having not learned a basic healing spell when she had been younger; as her old Captain used to say, Skyrim could always use more healers.

She sighed heavily and attempted to rise again, this time taking great care not to aggravate any aching muscles. Once she reached her feet, she realized that her weapons were gone. She looked around frantically, but Gwilin was already one step ahead, and pointed out the bow and axe nearby the fire,

“I took them off of you since you were sleeping oddly on the bow. I didn’t want you to break it.”

Temba was growing more and more resentful of the Bosmer’s resourcefulness; she didn’t want to thank him - to do so would admit a failure on her part, and a dependency upon him. Oh how she hated the elf then, and her glare was only the beginning of her visible loathing,

“You touched me while I slept? Left me exposed while you set up this piss poor camp?” Her foot kicked the spit, and the hare fell off into the flames below, “You fool elf - I should shear your ears and feed them to the wolves.”

To his credit, Gwilin only retreated a step as Temba stormed him. He earned a black eye for his bravery, but the Bosmer took the blow easily enough to recover quickly and say,

“Please, Miss Temba. I only wanted to make sure you were all right. I meant and mean no disrespect, but…”

“But what?”

Gwilin’s eyes shifted anxiously, and he swallowed before saying,

“Well, you’ve been out of practice for a while, and… it would be irresponsible of me, as your apprentice-”

“You’re not my apprentice anymore.”

“Yes, but still, Miss Temba…” he fixed his eyes to the ground, then shrugged, “I  _ know _ you need help. You left all of your stuff back in your room, even your pack. You only took weapons, see?” Gwilin’s gaze rose to meet Temba’s, “I wanted to catch up with you to give you some food and supplies, but then I had to draw away a highwayman who had been following you. It’s dangerous for someone who travels alone, Miss Temba, especially if she doesn’t know how to survive in the forests.” The Bosmer’s voice grew firm as he challenged the woman who had been his cruel master not more than a day ago, “I am going with you, whether you like it or not. So kill me if you have to, because that’s the only way you’re getting rid of me.”

And Temba almost did. The sheer gall of the elf had made her eye twitch, and for a moment a haze overcame her vision. Had she her axe on her, she probably would have buried it in Gwilin’s skull just out of impulse. Perhaps that’s why he had taken it off. She grabbed the elf by the arm and lifted him up as though he were a limp fish,

“I’m going to count to three. If you aren’t scrambling down that road back to Ivarstead by the time I say ‘one’, I’m taking my own Green Pact and roasting you alive.”

Gwilin remained defiant, albeit with a quivering voice,

“No, Miss Temba. I won’t and you won’t.”

Temba’s hand squeezed around the elf’s arm, then let him go. He fell to the ground in a heap, clutched his bicep, then scurried over to the fire where the hare had charred to an unrecognizable black shape.

Picking it up, Gwilin peered and cracked off a piece. He popped it into his mouth and grimaced before forcing an enthusiastic,

“I think it still tastes great!”

Temba stared at the elf in motionless bafflement; had he just defied her? And had she let him? Her eye had stopped twitching, and her mouth held a halfway sneer; slowly, she walked over to where her bow lay and picked it up. Gwilin watched warily as the Nord woman examined the new bowstring he had fashioned for her,

“Your old one was frayed. It felt only right to replace it.”

“It felt only right to replace it, huh?”

“Y-yes, Miss Temba.”

Temba slung the bow over her shoulder and looked down at the burnt hare,

“It’s no use. Start packing up - we’ll find something else on the way.”

Gwilin’s eyes grew wide as his old master pointed to her axe. With a kind smile, he picked it up and handed it to her, then immediately rolled out of the way as she swung to take off his head.

He remained crouched, she standing, both frozen in stance as they waited for the other to react. Then, with an easy indifference, Temba put the axe in her belt and walked away to get her pack.

Gwilin’s breath was heavy. This woman just tried to kill him, and now acted as though nothing had happened. Although the young Bosmer had never held any ill will for his mistress, even throughout the years of verbal umbrage and physical harm, he felt the seeds of hurt and distrust growing within him

Meanwhile, Temba waited at the side of the road, a hand on her hip as she looked for any sign of life coming up or down the cobbles. It was daybreak and she wanted to move on as quickly as possible. Getting to Riften was imperative; maybe there she could rid herself of her unwanted companion.

She had been within the city before; lived there for a year when she was a teenager training for the guard. Back then Laila Law-Giver had just been Laila, a distant and absent-minded young woman who had been thrust into power after her father’s death. They had been friends, or at least Laila said as much; she seemed fond of Temba, if nothing else. 

_Not fond enough to reply to letters though_ , Temba noted with a bitter kick of a stone. She watched it skip down the road and skitter off into a bush. At the same time Gwilin had joined her, pack and sleeping rolls on his back. He didn’t show signs of struggling, which Temba secretly resented; she would have liked to leave him behind, but the elf had a point - she was green out here in the wilds, and it was always better to have bait than to not.

She started to move, but realized after a minute of walking that Gwilin wasn’t following. She turned about and stalked back to him,

“What’s the matter? Having second thoughts?”

Gwilin hesitated, then asked,

“Miss Temba… were you going to kill me?”

Temba narrowed her eyes and huffed impatiently,

“Yes. I was. But you moved out of the way and now it’s over with. Can we get a move on?”

Gwilin stayed as he was for a long time, then made a request so pitifully that even Temba couldn’t refuse,

“Please don’t do that again.”

“Fine,” she crossed her arms and furrowed her brow, “now shut up and walk.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Have to pay the toll to enter Riften, Miss. Sorry to say.”

“ _Toll?_ What _toll?_ Let me through, damn you. What in Oblivion do you think you’re trying to pull?”

While Temba and the guard each tried their best to escalate the dispute (with the latter nervously setting his hand near his swordbelt), Gwilin used his wily cheeriness to ease the other guard’s apathy towards the growing disturbance between her partner and the fiery auburn-haired woman,

“Please, ma’am, Miss Temba and I have traveled a long way,” he stretched his arms out to emphasize the length of the journey, “we’re tired, cold, and in dreadful need of a place to stay. Now, I know you must get this everyday. Folks who want to skip out on paying the toll…”

In the meantime, Temba had stuck her finger in the male guard’s face,

"The Purple Cloaks employ thieves and scoundrels now? I’m not some poor old fool that you can just rob and swindle. I watched these same gates when you were still a droplet in your Pa’s-!”

Temba broke off as she felt Gwilin’s hand on her shoulder,

“It’s fine, Miss Temba. See? She’s opening it now.” Sure enough, the guardswoman had seemingly been swayed by Gwilin’s badgering, and was in the process of unlocking the gates.

The other guard crossed his arms and made a ‘hrmph’ sound. On their way in, Temba feigned a lunge, making the guard jump, and felt mighty content for it.

“Milk-drinker…” she muttered as they crossed the gatehouse threshold and entered Riften proper. The city hadn’t changed much, at least at first glance, which was all Temba could hope for. She wasn’t the biggest fan of returning to places she had once known. She had a queer fondness for nostalgia, to the point of it being an excuse to make her sour moods sourer.

Riften’s streets were still depressing, the hazy fog that seemed to hang perpetually over the city emphasizing the characteristic drear and shade of the inhabitants - said fog blanketed beggars sitting on the wooden platforms and bridges; obscured the bribes slipped by hooded figures to guards in the dark alleyways; covered the silhouettes of fish darting below in the depths of Lake Ilinalta.

Temba’s nose twitched as she caught a whiff of the stench of the water below, and looked down over the edge of a wooden railing. She could see the floating corpse of a skeever, and immediately spat in disgust.

“Now I remember why I wanted to leave this city so much…” She was speaking to herself, although the Bosmer at her side had a habit of thinking this was an invitation to conversation,

“Oh, it isn’t that bad, Miss Temba. There’s a certain roguish charm about the place, don’t you think?”

Temba shot Gwilin a withering look before continuing on. The pair reached the entrance of the Bee and the Barb when Temba decided she needed a long break from her helpful sore,

“We’ll need rooms. Rent us for two nights. And _don’t_ come looking for me. I’ll find you.”

She left him outside the tavern door and marched for the looming and austere structure of Mistveil Keep. Her steps were made unconsciously, and it was only when stopped by a guard before the keep doors did she realize exactly what she was doing.

Blinking, Temba looked down at the guard as he repeated his question,

“Are you deaf, lass? What’s your business here?”

Her eyes narrowed as she tried to discern the guard’s features beneath his purple hood. He was maybe ten years her junior, too young to have been someone she had served with. The two gate guards had been young as well. There would be little use pulling the card of veteran on new bloods,

“I… I come from Ivarstead. I’m - I _was_ the miller there. Temba,” she sucked in a breath, inwardly cringing as she muttered, “Wide-Arm.”

She felt stupid all of a sudden, acting like a flustered girl in front of this boy who probably hadn’t left the walls of the city in his entire life. Her face formed a scowl and she advanced a step, looming over the young man and barking,

“Listen here, you little halfwit. I’ve known Jarl Laila Law-Giver since we were just girls sparring in the training yard. I served three years on the outlier patrols, and one inside this keep as a personal guard to Jarl Halfdan himself. Do you want to call me ‘lass’ again or do you want to let me through?”

The guard paled; he had thought the older woman an easy mark for pushing around. A miscalculation. He nodded and stepped aside, allowing for Temba to pass.

She noted that the guard followed her into the keep, which she could appreciate. Always accompany a new arrival entering the presence of the Jarl. Maybe ‘halfwit’ had been a tad excessive.

The warmth of Mistveil Keep was almost stifling as Temba stepped into the large hall. Servants hurried to and fro and courtiers lounged around, speaking and eating pheasant and drinking wine.

For a moment Temba considered turning back and walking out. She had stepped through the doors, and that was a good enough. She had nothing to prove nor gain from seeing her old friend.

Temba’s eyes found the Jarl sitting in her throne near the end of the hall. She felt the Jarl’s eyes on her in turn; indeed, she felt the whole hall’s eyes on her. She wanted to run, but the guard at her side was giving her a nudge and walking forwards, and soon she followed.

Jarl Laila Law-Giver’s posture was relaxed as she gazed down upon the newcomer in her presence. Her lips drew tight into a thoughtful, dazed frown before recognition slowly crept across her face. Temba was anxious as she met the Jarl’s eyes, and her stomach felt as though it were being churned. There was silence in the hall now as its occupants waited for something to happen.

Twenty years past, Temba would have known the proper decorum and procedure to act in front of her jarl, but now her mind was blank. She knew that she had to say something. It wouldn’t be right of her station to make the jarl address her first.

She lowered into a curtsy, holding the sides of her skirt and bowing her head,

“My Jarl. I am your humble servant, Temba Wide-Arm. I have traveled from Ivarstead to-.”

A wave of Laila’s hand cut Temba off, and she stared in wonder as the stately woman rose from her throne and approached. Bowing her head further, Temba’s breath caught in her throat. Why was she so nervous? Why did she feel so small, despite standing half a head over most male Nords? She wanted to return to the Vilemyr, return to the mill and pretend as though this whole thing had never happened.

Temba didn’t know what to expect when Laila closed in on her, but it certainly wasn’t the hug that she soon found herself enveloped in.

"Temba,” Laila’s voice was muffled against her old friend’s shoulder, “it’s been so long.”

The entire court was speaking now, indistinct chatter rising until the Jarl pulled away and smiled warmly up to Temba,

“What brings you back to Riften?”

Her voice was welcoming and affectionate, which caught her old friend off guard. Still, Temba was a woman grown, going into her fourth decade. They weren’t spring chicks anymore, and Laila would have to answer some long seated questions,

“Did you receive my letters, my jarl? I’m sure a few dozen of them had to have made it to the walls. Or do messengers have to pay the visitor’s toll too?”

As soon as she had spoken, Temba wished that she hadn’t. Her words had come off too hot, and her spiteful tone was no better. She could see the tired joy on Laila’s face falter, could hear the court’s sudden silence. Temba’s ears burned and she crossed her arms and glowered at the floor, awaiting rough hands on her shoulders to seize and drag her off to the dungeons.

They never came.

“Oh, Temba… I’m so sorry. I had meant to get to those…”

Temba thought that her fury could grow no further, but she was wrong. Her hands were shaking so much that she had to force them into the back crevice of her skirt, so the guards behind her would be able to restrain her if need be,

“For nearly twenty years, you were never able to ‘get to’ a single one of my letters. All the requests for more patrols along the roads, for more hunting licenses, for a cull and cave excavations… all of those letters?”

“I am so, so sorry, Temba. Surely you understand that maintaining the prosperity and security of the Rift is a…” Laila looked off to the left, where a statuesque Bosmer bureaucrat stood staring daggers down at Temba, “demanding task. There are daily reports of banditry, khajiit caravans avoiding searches, bad harvests, and a host of other issues that are worsening over time. And to say nothing of the war…”

Temba inwardly snorted, although she supposed she unknowingly did it outwardly too, given the appalled reaction from the huscarls and thanes. She cleared her throat and kept her gaze to the ground; she was pushing her luck,

“Ivarstead has given more than its fair share to the war, especially lumber, my Jarl. There’ll be a shortage for a while, as I’ve had to range out farther and farther for undamaged trees. Such effort costs labor, and labor costs septims.”

A hollow, shrill laughter sounded from behind Temba, and the murmurings of the court grew. Laila’s eyes focused on the source of the noise, and Temba’s head swivelled around to discern who it was.

The laughter had come from the hall’s great table, where two black haired nobles sat; one an older, imperious looking woman, the other, her daughter, given their striking likeness. A few more seconds of peering gave Temba the familiar blow of recognition, and she felt herself bristle.

Maven Black-Briar’s smile was the thin kind, the kind that was knowing, patronizing, and so obviously fake. And Maven herself knew exactly how it came off, but Temba doubted that the most powerful person in the Rift gave a skeever’s tail about the thoughts of others, especially those lesser than her.

Temba could remember the Maven from her youth; pompous, snide, and as ruthless a woman one could know. Woe to any unfortunate old sap who fell in love with the young heiress, for his demise would surely come quickly after the betrothal, and his fortunes secured by the Black-Briar family.

Temba had to admire Maven, if just a little, for her cunning and determination, however base; the Black-Briar matriarch had saved her family from total ruin after her father’s string of terrible ventures. When the first ever cartload of Black-Briar mead pulled into Ivarstead, Temba was bitterly disappointed that the brew didn’t taste of poison as befitted its name.

But whatever bit of respect that the former miller had was disappearing quickly as she and Maven’s eyes met and held in passionate challenge. The tension could have been cleaved with a dwarven blade, so thick was the air between them.

At last Maven cleared her throat and looked to the jarl; the most imperceptible of nods exchanged between the two women, and Laila Law-Giver spoke again,

“Whatever Ivarstead needs, I shall grant, old friend.”

* * *

 

The next day went quickly as Temba saw herself outfitted by the best The Scorched Hammer could provide; she chose to stay true to what she knew, and used Laila’s line of credit to buy a modified Stormcloak cuirass, affixed with a leather hood shrouded with a thin layer of steel scales. She got rid of her old dress and belt altogether and replaced them with hardy hide breaches and jerkin to match. She got a new war axe of fine steel, and her old hunting bow was exchanged for one made in the Colovian recurve style.

She hadn’t found a way to shake Gwilin off of her permanently, so in the meantime made use of him as a pack mule, making him haul around all the equipment she purchased as she moved around Riften’s market.

When dusk settled and her outfitting was done, Temba and Gwilin retired to the Bee and the Barb. There was a lively crowd already gathered for Harvest’s End, and the pair drank at a faraway table, separate from the festivities. Temba wished she could enjoy herself alone, but Gwilin had insisted on staying with her, and murder in a tavern was only something a very powerful Thane could get away with.

They sat in silence, watching bitterly and hopefully as the people of Riften sung and danced and had a merry old time. Temba could almost feel Gwilin’s desperation, his yearning to join the merriment, but she’d be damned if he would try to drag her along. After an hour, a fair-haired man who reeked of ale stumbled over to them,

“Hey! Why aren’t you two joining the fun? There’s free mead, food, and board for afterwards, if you know what I mean. Big saber-cat like you needs a tumble.” The man gave a lecherous grin to Temba, and she repaid him with a kick in the groin.

As the man crawled away, Gwilin found the opportunity he had been looking for, emboldened by their visitor,

“How about it, Miss Temba? Just a jig or two won’t hurt, right?”

Temba shot the Bosmer a glare that said everything… but then relented a small nod,

“You go. I’m tired.” Gwilin tried to protest, so Temba repeated herself, “I am _tired_ , Gwilin.”

Gwilin hesitated, then stood up and disappeared into the crowd after a concerned glance shot back at his old master.

Temba didn’t enjoy her solitude for long before she was joined again by another man. She kept her eyes on the crowd, opting to ignore her new company rather than humor him. He, however, had other ideas,

“You know, whenever I go to gatherings like this and I see someone alone and sullen, I wonder why they came at all,” the man chuckled quietly to himself, as though he had just told the funniest joke, “you’re just a sore to look at, is what I’m saying. Everyone’s enjoying themselves, and here you are…”

Temba’s chest rose and fell as she took deep and steady breaths. She said nothing.

“Of course, you don’t have to join the fun. After all, Jarl Laila’s ‘Wide-Arm’ can do whatever she wants. Could even kick a Snow-Shod in the unmentionables and get away with it.”

“What do you want?” Asked Temba through gritted teeth, her patience finally running out. She glimpsed the man’s red hair and fine clothes out of her peripheral.

“I don’t want anything. Except to give you this,” he slipped a septim onto the table and stood up, “you hold onto that, lass.”

Temba bristled at the word _lass_ , and suddenly familiarity stirred. The guard who let her into Mistveil. Her head whipped around to get a good look, but the man had disappeared into the crowd.

The single septim remained on the table, gleaming in the candlelight; Temba glared at it, felt stupid for being angry at a mere coin, and then (after glancing around to see if the man was nearby), snatched it in a huff and spun it over her knuckles. Her lips parted slightly as she considered what to do with it...

“Need a drink?” A beautiful Nord serving girl was standing before her, and Temba blinked out of her thoughts,

“Mhm? Oh…” Temba hesitated, looked at her two empty mugs, and nodded, “an ale, thank you.”

The girl turned to leave, but Temba called out at the last moment,

“Wait - here, for your troubles.”

The single septim flipped through the air, seeming to float against its own weight before the girl snatched it out of the air and tucked it within her bosom.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave kudos/reviews if you enjoyed or felt like there was something to be improved. Any critique is always appreciated! If not, thanks for reading! <3


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